In Atlantean Caves
by obstacle1
Summary: Pursued through the Department of Mysteries, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna go through one door too many and find themselves trapped in the Old World with no way back.
1. I: The Black Door

I: The Black Door, or, Hexes and Hormones, or, a Passage to the Old World

* * *

They were back in the circular room. Hermione marked another burning 'X' on the door they had come out of and Harry prayed for the doors to start spinning again, breathing a sigh of relief as the room creaked into motion again. Half a minute spun by in a blur of blue torchlight and red crosses. The doors started to slow down and he could see individual torches again. A click sounded as the room came to rest.

"Which door?" Ginny asked.

There was a moment's hesitation, and two masked figures burst through a door on the left. An Impediment Jinx clipped the shorter Death Eater and he crumpled to the floor. In the moment it took his partner to revive him, Neville made it to an unmarked door and went through it, the others following him. Harry and Luna were last through; Harry had barely closed the door when a chunk of wood was ripped out by his left ear, forcing him to duck to avoid a shower of splinters. He stumbled, righted himself and hurried on, giving his breathless thanks to Luna, who had stopped to help him. They were in a crescent-shaped room. Curved rows of stone steps, arranged in a shallow arc, led down towards a curious looking door which was raised on a cracked plinth. The whole room seemed to have been designed with the proportions of an amphitheatre in mind.

The door looked like a relic taken from an ancient civilisation. It was made from a black, grainless material, too dark for wood, too textured for metal, supported only by a doorway made of the same substance. A triangular handle of brushed silver was set into the right hand side. Crosses, spirals and other strange and intricately carved symbols ran in vertical bands down the door. The whole structure fascinated Harry, seeming to hint at an older, more potent type of magic than anything he'd encountered in the magical world yet, and for a minute he forgot all about looking for Sirius and just stood, gazing at the door in fascination. Then Luna placed a hand on his shoulder, silently urging him on, and he hurried after her.

Hermione and Neville were already firing spells at the door they'd come in through, trying to stop the Death Eaters following them. Ron and Ginny were hurrying down the steps, desperate to reach the freestanding door which seemed to be their only chance of escape. Ducking out of the line of spellfire, Harry and Luna wheeled round, intent on stalling the Death Eaters until Ron and Ginny could get the other door open. The two cloaked figures retreated momentarily, and there was a flurry of excited voices, which were duly silenced and replaced by a male voice barking orders. Then Lucius Malfoy strode in, blasting the rest of the door to tatters with consummate ease. Just behind him, Bellatrix Lestrange announced herself with a cackle. Harry went very cold.

"Potter", Lucius said curtly. Then he spotted Neville and gave him a sadistic grin. "Longbottom, is it? You must be well acquainted with my associate Bellatrix, then?"

Laughing, Lucius and Bellatrix started walking towards them, pausing to toss off a few minor jinxes as if to gauge how much of a threat the four Hogwarts students posed. And then without any warning Neville started sprinting towards Bellatrix, his wand completely forgotten in his desperate haste to reach her.

"Don't do it! She'll kill you Neville!" Hermione screamed, and Harry froze in horror for a moment before tearing after him, sure he was missing something in his desperation to reach Neville. Mercifully, he was quicker than his roommate, managing to tackle Neville before he could reach the end of Bellatrix's wand, sending them both of them tumbling down the long flight of steps. The world rolled past Harry as he made his way down in a tangle of limbs. The sharp ledge of a step came into focus, connected with his cheek and spun away. He closed his eyes, and the rest of his descent passed in dizzying darkness, landing hard on stone over and over again, until he came to a crunching rest at the bottom.

Harry hissed in pain and opened an eye slowly. A pair of eyes, brown and concerned, looked back at him. They blinked a few times. A crease formed between – between – Harry had forgotten what they were called. Anyway, how sweet; they were really worried about him. Eyebrows, that's what they were called. He noticed that the eyes blinking back at his were either side of a small nose lightly dusted with freckles. Something orange that smelt lovely was tickling his cheek, and for some reason all Harry could think about were flowers and hot chocolates and springtime. The eyes were the nicest though, he decided. The kind you could get lost in, he reckoned, and then immediately wondered what on earth had possessed him to think a thing like that. Maybe the fall had caused some damage. He suddenly remembered that two high ranking, highly trained Death Eaters were trying to kill him. For some reason, it didn't seem all that important.

Ginny looked down at Harry. Despite the numerous cuts and bruises he'd gotten from his tumble down the stairs, he was looking strangely cheerful.

"Are you alright?" She asked softly. Harry snapped back into focus, spending a moment looking thoroughly uncomfortable before sitting up.

"Yeah, fine. Are the others ok?"

"I think so", Ginny said, not sounding convinced.

Harry turned round. From this distance he could hear the black door humming with saturated magic. Ron was attending to Neville. Two clashes had broken out at the top of the room. Hermione was being backed into a corner by Bellatrix, who was keeping up a constant barrage of _Avada Kedavras_ and _Crucios_. Poor Hermione was trembling, white-lipped, only just managing to avoid the onslaught of Unforgiveables. Luna and Lucius were duelling, dancing around each other in a whirl of blonde hair, until Luna noticed she had an audience.

"Summon me, Harry", she called, winking cheekily at him from across the room. Harry faltered for a moment.

"Accio – er – Luna!" He managed to finish with some conviction, and Luna sailed down to him, landing daintily in his arms.

"My hero", she whispered, grinning up at him, before being helped to her feet, completely oblivious to the sour look Ginny was giving her. Neville summoned Hermione, who came perilously close to being hit by a yellow cutting curse from Lucius. The six of them stood in a rough circle around the black door. Harry looked round desperately, all too aware Lucius and Bellatrix were descending towards them and they were effectively trapped. He began to realise the folly of rushing into the Department of Mysteries with only five friends, all of them overwhelmed against much older and experienced opposition.

"We couldn't get the door open", Ron said, silently firing a Leg-Locker Curse at Bellatrix, who sidestepped it easily and kept closing in on them. No-one answered him. Lucius and Bellatrix were only ten feet away now.

"What should we do with them, Lucius?" Bellatrix asked with a look of feral glee.

"Kill them", Lucius said, sounding supremely bored. "It seems Potter needs another reminder of what happens when he brings his friends with him for company on his little adventures. He seems to have forgotten about Cedric."

Bellatrix needed no further encouragement, firing a bolt of lurid green at Luna who did well to avoid it at such close range, and suddenly spells were being slung rapidly on both sides. Even outnumbered three to one, Lucius and Bellatrix always seemed to be in complete control, easily dispatching any curses sent their way and retaliating with volleys that kept threatening to get through the defences of the six teenagers; only a few seconds passed before Harry had to jump in front of Ron to deflect a curse his friend wasn't going to stop in time, and his momentum carried him forward to fall against the black door. It was warm to the touch. Resting a hand on it, he felt a responsive jolt of magic run up his arm, and before he quite knew what he was doing he was willing the door to open, and after a moment it silently complied and swung open. Ron and Hermione dived through and Luna managed to bundle Neville through just after them, the four of them vanishing as soon as they made it into the doorway, swallowed in a surge of powerful magic.

Lucius seized upon this lull in spellfire and concentrated all his efforts onto Ginny. She managed to deflect a few spells and dodge the darker looking ones until a venomous red bolt hit her square in the chest and she was lying on the floor, twitching and screaming in agony. Harry turned instantly, sickened by the sound and for a desperate second he nearly retaliated with his own _Crucio_ but couldn't bring himself to cast it, opting for a Cutting Curse instead.

"Lacero!"

And Lucius had to cancel his curse to get a shield up in time, and Harry was acting purely on fear and adrenaline now, turning and sending Bellatrix's wand flying from her hand with an overpowered _Expelliarmus_ which sounded like it snapped a few fingers too. He rushed over and bent down to scoop Ginny up, just as Lucius sent a spell over his head that reduced a sizeable chunk of wall to mere dust. And then Lucius made the mistake of fetching Bellatrix's wand for her, and Harry was through the door before either one of them could get a spell away.

For a moment a rushing sound filled his ears and his vision turned blue, like he was being pulled through a waterfall – and then he was through the door, landing hard on a stone floor, and Ginny landing on top of him a moment after. Then the door slammed shut, and they were enveloped in total darkness.

"Everyone alright?" Harry asked, and got four groans in response. He could feel Ginny trembling on top of him and felt a sickly wash of guilt rise in his throat. Lucius had been right; he had to stop getting other people involved and letting them get hurt in his place.

"Lumos", someone called weakly.

A pinprick of light blinked into existence, Hermione appearing behind it. They had to be in a large room; Hermione's spell hadn't done much to shift the darkness. Apart from the floor, which was incredibly dusty, Harry could only see the wall behind him and the door he'd just come out of. Everywhere else was the same shade of black.

Ginny was crying lightly into his chest.

Ron Hermione and Luna were sitting up and wincing, looking around from the light of Hermione's wand. Neville was next to him, looking more composed now they'd escaped Bellatrix. Bellatrix. Harry cursed and trained his wand on the door, expecting either Death Eater to come through at any moment. Nothing happened for several seconds. There was nothing to do other than wait; everyone wore matching looks of apprehension. The silenced stretched to half a minute.

"Harry, what happened to Ginny?" Neville asked.

Harry tried to steel himself against the sobs building in his chest. "Lucius hit her with the Cruciatus." Everyone gasped, and Ron made an awful choking noise. "It was only for three or four seconds," Harry added quickly, and then wished he'd kept quiet. As if trying to downplay it could make it any better.

Ron hurried over and Harry slowly lifted Ginny up, helping her into her brother's arms. He was struck at how light and fragile she felt. Not wanting the others to see him if he succumbed to tears, Harry stood up and approached the door and pressed an ear to it, fully expecting to hear voices and spellfire. It was completely silent. His scar, which had been a prickling blister of heat ever since he'd reached the Ministry, was now cool and painless.

"Where are we?" he said to no one in particular.

"Probably deeper into the Department of Mysteries", Neville said bluntly, speaking for the first time since they'd seen Bellatrix.

"Point me Sirius", Harry intoned, placing his wand in his opened palm. It twitched a few times and then started spinning round; just like the rotor on a muggle helicopter, he thought. Harry closed his hand around it, feeling more defeated than ever.

"You're under a lot of stress at the moment, Harry", Hermione said kindly, "that's probably why the spell didn't work."

"No, Harry's wandwork is fine", Luna said. "Perhaps Sirius isn't in any direction."

Hermione gave Luna a long-suffering stare but stopped herself from making a snide remark.

"Daddy always says there places you couldn't get to by normal means, no matter how far you go in any direction. Maybe there are places you can only reach by magic."


	2. II: The Stone Observatory

II: The Stone Observatory, or, Tears and Realised Fears, or, What Harry and the Others Found There

* * *

No-one had anything to say. Luna's comment was terrifying in a vague sort of way, and Harry tried not to think too much about the fact he might have accidentally transported everyone to a place they couldn't get back from. He went over to open the door, figuring that having to deal with Lucius and Bellatrix was better than being trapped in magical limbo. Harry placed his hand on the door and willed it to open again, trying to recreate the desperation he'd felt minutes before as he pictured Ginny writhing in agony on the floor. Hatred welled up inside him. The door stayed locked.

Luna and Neville had added their own _Lumos_ spells to Hermione's, the three wands bringing the whole room into profile. It was circular, about twenty metres in diameter and constructed entirely from one type of grey stone. The door they'd fallen through was the only way in or out of the room. Hermione lifted her wand up and peered at the ceiling. A thin border of gold formed a faded circle where the ceiling met the walls. A giant network of lines, connecting points labelled in a mysterious text, had been carved into the ceiling.

Harry sat by the wall, knees pressed to his chest, watching miserably as Ron carefully laid Ginny down on a blanket Hermione had conjured, selfishly wishing there were some corners in circular rooms where he could skulk off to.

"Harry", Ginny croaked, her voice hoarse. Harry hurried over and knelt by her. She looked up at him.

"Thank you", she said, eyes slightly clouded from the pain, but grateful nonetheless.

A hot lump had formed in Harry's throat and he found he couldn't say anything. Thanks was the last thing he'd been expecting. Ginny gave him a weak, cracked smile and continued.

"Everyone else had – had gone, and I thought that – they would –" She couldn't finish; recalling the awful, agonising moment proved too much and Ginny burst into tears, burying her face in Harry's chest. He didn't think he could feel much worse, but as Ginny's trembling hands gathered fabric from his jumper and Harry watched her fingers curl into little fists, he wished she'd never had the misfortune of meeting him. Compelled to offer her some comfort, he wrapped Ginny a clumsy hug, conscious that everyone was watching him. Ron looked uncomfortable at the display and Hermione looked on with tears in her eyes.

Once Ginny had stopped crying, Harry eased her back onto the blanket. They let her sleep. Everyone moved to sit on the other side of the room, eager to discuss what their next course of action should be. Hermione said they should try blasting out of the room once Ginny woke up. Neville said he didn't think that would work. Ron said his mother was going to kill him when she found out he'd let Lucius Malfoy curse his sister. Then he wondered aloud when there would be a chance to eat, and Hermione told him to be quiet unless he had something constructive to say. Luna didn't say much, choosing to lie down on the blanket beside Ginny and cuddle up to her classmate. Harry stayed quiet and soon the others did the same. A few hours passed in silence as everyone sought company with their thoughts. Eventually Ginny woke up and saw Luna was lying next to her.

"Hi", she said softly, smiling at her friend. Everyone crowded round, relieved to see Ginny had woken up and stopped trembling.

"Is there anything to drink?" she asked, looking up at the circle that had formed above her.

Ron conjured a cup and filled it with an _Aguamenti _charm, passing it to his sister.

"Are – are you alright, Gin?" he asked gruffly.

"I'll be okay", she said, giving Harry a shy smile. "What are we going to do now?"

"Hermione's going to try and blast us out of here", Luna said, a little too seriously. Harry stifled a laugh as Hermione glared at Luna, not entirely sure if she was being made fun of or not. She decided to pass over the matter and turned her attention to a patch of wall.

"Confringo!" she shouted, sending a purple beam of light into the wall, which reflected the spell without the slightest sign of damage, forcing Hermione to flatten herself to avoid her own curse as it raced back towards her. The blasting hex ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the floor, the ceiling and every wall; it missed Neville by inches, and Hermione was shouting apologies to anyone who would listen as they cowered in the centre of the room, everyone sure it was going to hit someone in a minute and cause some serious damage. Harry brought up a shield charm and managed to deflect the spell into the door, more by dumb luck than anything else. The door absorbed the spell and the room was quiet again. Everyone spent a minute lying on the floor, trying to get their breath back. Then Luna started giggling and Neville joined in, both of them trying not to look at a very cross Hermione.

"Any other plans I should be worried about?" Ginny asked her scowling brother, sharing a smile with Harry as she did so.

"I bloody hope not", Ron muttered, failing to see the funny side of nearly being bludgeoned to death.

Luna leant across and whispered something to Neville, causing them both to erupt in laughter. Hermione glowered at them. Harry hid his smile behind his hand.

Now the immediate threat of being hit by a blasting hex was gone, the six teenagers weren't really sure what to do. Harry and Ginny chatted on the blanket; Harry kept trying to apologise but Ginny wouldn't let him, talking about anything that wasn't on the subject of the Department of Mysteries in an effort to keep Harry from thinking about Sirius. Ron wasted half an hour trying to open the door, first with some complicated wandwork, then by talking to it, and then by hitting it limply until Ginny told him to stop because he was giving her a headache. From time to time Neville or Luna would look at Hermione and collapse in a fit of giggles. Hermione would scowl at them, well aware they were laughing at her.

"I think it's probably evening now in England", Ron said, sounding wistful. Harry would have bet his entire Gringotts account Ron was thinking about Hogwarts supper.

A deep, rumbling noise started, and for a ludicrous second Harry thought it was coming from Ron's stomach. Fine particles of dust filtered down from above as the ceiling started to move. Neville sneezed. At the very centre of the dome, a yellow point of light flashed briefly and other points around it started to pulse, causing even more lights to blink into existence. Once two dots connected by a line were lit up, white light would spill out slowly from both ends, like water being poured down a channel. Soon a network of lights was spreading out across the ceiling, illuminating the room below where everyone stood looking up in wonder. The rumbling noise continued as the ceiling began to rotate slowly, splitting into segments of rocks which slid ponderously past each other. They would take hours to complete a circuit of the room.

"It's some sort of magical observatory, I think", Ginny said, gazing up at the dome. "All of the dots are stars, and the lines make constellations."

The others murmured in agreement. A few larger, unconnected dots above Neville's head began to glow green. Harry thought they might be planets. He looked behind him, where a lonely cluster of stars was slowly disappearing into the gold border between the ceiling and the wall. New constellations crept into existence on the other side of the room.

With an excited skip, like she'd just worked something out, Luna walked across to the door and placed her hand on it. To everyone's surprise, it opened with click, and they all hurried over to crowd around Luna. She had paused with her hand on the handle.

Hermione spoke up from the back of the group. "How did you manage to get the door open?"

Luna turned around and smiled. "Once Ginny had worked out what the room was, I thought it might be nice enough to open up for us."

"Luna, that's brilliant", Harry breathed, relief evident in his voice. "Let's get back to the Department of Mysteries." He couldn't imagine Lucius and Bellatrix had spent the whole afternoon waiting by the black door in full Death Eater garb.

"Oh no, it doesn't lead us back to where we came from", Luna said seriously. "It's a magic door."

"Er – where does it lead then?" Ron asked, sounding apprehensive.

"I don't know", Luna said truthfully, and pushed the door open to reveal a rocky passageway. A flight of stone steps led downwards into darkness. Water could be heard dripping from stalactites, pooling on the floor and trickling down the steps. Luna cast a _Lumos_ and stepped through the door, the others following behind her. Their breaths rose in smoky puffs as they descended through the cold damp air. Ginny shivered, looking even paler by the light of Luna's wand. Harry wished he knew how to conjure blankets. After a while the path flattened out and they came to a landing. A large rectangular slab of rock blocked the entrance to what looked to be a cave.

"What do you reckon? We could shift this and see what's behind it", Ron said, sizing up the slab of rock. "I've had enough of walking for a while."

Harry and Neville said they felt the same way, and after much pushing and panting, and a few silenced _Glisseos_ from Hermione so as to not injure the boys' pride, they managed to shift the rock a couple of feet. Harry and Neville slipped through the gap and peered into the dark. It was drier inside the cave, and the light that filtered through from the passage showed loose rubble and rocks strewn by their feet.

Harry thought he could hear something beating softly in the distance, and a shiver of unease ran down his spine. Neville gave him a worried look. The beating noise grew louder. And then something hellish came out of the dark. There was a rattling breath, a violent ripping noise, and Harry saw something huge and wraith-like lunge toward him, shrieking viciously, driven out of its mind by the passage of millennia. A pale wing ending in talons nearly decapitated Neville, who managed to duck and squeeze back out through the gap, and Harry turned, desperate to follow him. It was only a couple of steps, but he could hear wings beating about his head and there was a hot, putrid breath on the back of his neck. He tore back through the gap between the wall and the rock, slicing his palm on the bare stone, and spun to face whatever foul demonic creature had come out from the back of the cave.

"Close it up! Close it up! Put the rock back!" he screamed.

Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Luna sprang into action. They ran round to the other side of the rock and started pushing, managing to get it closed most of the way before the monster made it to the entrance and managed to get a hand through.

The hand was colourless and huge. Each finger was close to half a foot in length, and all five were grappling and clawing at the rock, trying to prize the entrance to the cave open. The palm was a shrunken waste of skin the size of a man's head. And in it you could see a mass of tendons, snapping and sliding desperately. The worst of it all was how high up the hand was – it must have been ten or twelve feet above the ground – so that they could all see all how just how big the creature was.

"Harry, get rid of it!" Ron shouted, putting all his weight into keeping the door closed.

"Stupefy!" The first spell missed by an inch inside and hit the rock, which rattled ominously. The second shot hit the hand dead on. It froze for a moment, then twitched and began clawing again.

"Cutting curse!" Ginny called, hardly sparing breath next to her brother.

"What if I hit the rock?" Harry asked, full of dread.

No-one answered him. Neville lay trembling on the floor. Steadying himself, Harry took a deep breath and fired a bolt of blue at the flapping hand; it hit the creature's wrist and went through it with the clean snap of bone. The rock rumbled across the entrance, blocking it completely. Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Luna all collapsed to the floor, spent, the severed hand landing next to them. It didn't so much as twitch, lying curled and brittle on the floor. There was silence for a couple of seconds and then a frenzied shriek came from inside the cave. The creature, furious at being cheated of its freedom began to claw at the boulder. Horrible chilling sounds came through the rock. Harry hoisted Neville up and dragged him on down the path, desperate to put as much distance between them and the cave. The others ran after him, fuelled by terror, only stopping for breath when they couldn't hear the scratching sounds anymore.

Ron, Ginny and Luna kept up with him and Hermione arrived a few seconds later, panting heavily.

"What – what was that thing?" Ron asked, visibly shaken.

"I don't know", Harry managed between breaths, "but it looked really old. It was ancient." The others were watching him, expecting him to tell them what they were going to do next. "I guess we keep going, then", he said.

They wandered on in silence until Ginny said she was feeling tired again and hopped on Ron's back, asking him to carry her in her best little sister tone. Ron tried protesting but Ginny refused to get off and eventually he gave in, grumbling that she was too old for this and that she'd been much lighter as an eight-year-old. He got his own back a few minutes later by telling Harry that Ginny would much rather he carried her but unfortunately, she was too shy to ask. Ginny hissed at Ron furiously to be quiet, and then had Harry said he wouldn't mind carrying her, a little too quickly, and got an odd look from Hermione as a result. He didn't get another chance to embarrass himself, because by that time they'd reached another landing.

Here tHeHfasf\he passageway ended abruptly in a sheer wall of rock. Set into the wall was a door that looked identical to the one that had taken them out of the Department of Mysteries. It was formed of the same black substance, had the same triangular silver handle, and the same rows of symbols Harry couldn't decipher. He opened it. It led into an empty corridor. Once everyone had filed in, Harry closed the door and tried opening it again, only to find it had locked. It seemed they were stuck in the corridor for the time being.

By now everyone was tired, starving and all out of sorts. Hermione conjured some hammocks and fixed them to the walls. There was nothing to do but for everyone to go to bed. Harry lay awake as Ginny tossed and turned in a bunk above his, reliving the horrors of her day. The familiar sounds of Ron's and Neville's snoring could be heard. Eventually Harry fell asleep, and the next thing he knew, Ron was shaking him awake with a huge smile plastered on his face.

"Harry, wake up mate. You've got to see this."


	3. III: The Basking Meadows

III: The Basking Meadows, or, Kisses and Near Misses, or, Laughing in the Long Grass

* * *

Harry batted Ron's hand away groggily.

"Leave off", he mumbled into his pillow. Ron kept shaking him. "Stop being such a Hufflepuff, Ron."

Feigning offence, Ron left him alone and Harry rolled back over, fully intending on going back to sleep. He only got a minute's respite before Ron returned and began rocking his shoulder, telling him to get up again. Harry was about to start calling Ron worse things than a Hufflepuff when something that smelt wonderful was wafted under his nose. He was pretty sure it wasn't Ron. He opened his eyes to see Ron holding a croissant.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, giving the croissant the same look Dudley gave chocolate cake.

"You have to get up to find out." Ron said, holding the croissant out. Harry lunged at it, only for Ron to pull it away and wolf the croissant down while Harry watched.

"That better not have been the last one", Harry warned him, sitting up and pulling yesterday's t-shirt over his head. Ron laughed and walked down the corridor, slipping through the black door and taking care to leave it open. Intrigued, Harry got dressed and followed him.

Behind the door was a forest clearing. It was enclosed by a rough circle of trees, some of which were familiar, and others which were more interesting; there were trees with coiled trunks, trees that rose at odd angles and trees with long, drooping fronds in place of leaves that fell in green curtains around the forest. Underfoot, there was soft grass which was still cold from the morning's dew. Apart from the rustle of leaves, the clearing was silent. There was a slight breeze, which anyone who has been underground for a long period of time will tell you is a lovely and refreshing change from the stale, damp air they have been accustomed to.

Harry took absolutely no notice of any of this, because in the middle of the clearing there was a sight for sore stomachs. On a long wooden table there was a feast that would have put the Hogwarts House Elves to shame. The whole table was covered in food of every kind: cakes and pastries, cold meats, sweetmeats and steaming vegetables in ceramic pots. There were jellies and fresh loaves of bread, hundreds of puddings, and the fruit: apples and oranges had been arranged in small pyramids, and around the table there were plates dotted with pears and bunches of grapes, or apricots and plums; there was even a solitary watermelon sitting at the far end.

Ron was laughing at Harry's expression while he helped himself to a rather generous portion of chicken and roast potatoes. Harry turned to look around the forest. It could, he thought, have been England in springtime, except that where the sky should have been there was a grey stretch of rock, so he knew with a twinge of disappointment that they were still inside the caves. The black door with the triangular silver handle was set into the base of a large oak tree, looking like something of a children's fairy-tale.

Neville and the three girls were starting to wake up. Harry snatched a few apples from the table and lobbed them back through the doorway, hoping to lure them out of bed. Two landed in Luna's and Neville's bunks. Ginny caught another one and he was treated to a bleary-eyed smile which made something flutter in his chest and he felt oddly pleased with himself. Harry resolved to eat something himself and sat next to Ron. They were soon joined by Neville, Luna and Ginny. Hermione was the last to come through the black door.

"How do you know it hasn't been poisoned?" She was hanging back from the table, looking at the food sceptically. Harry stopped chewing and looked across at Ron, realising he'd forgotten to ask where the food came from, and who had left it there.

"It crossed my mind", Ron admitted, "but if whoever left it here wanted to kill us, it would have been much easier just to let us starve, rather than go through all the trouble of arranging this. And anyway, do you know any spells for checking poisons?"

Hermione shook her head, and Ron kept trying to persuade her to sit down, which Harry thought was a very kind thing to do, especially when he considered he'd almost never seen Ron do anything that kept him from eating. And perhaps eating food that had magically appeared without knowing where it had come from wasn't the best idea, but no-one seemed to be suffering any ill effects. Eventually Hermione allowed herself to be convinced to sit down, and after a few tentative mouthfuls she was eating as eagerly as everyone else.

No one spoke for a few minutes; not even the unusual flora could distract Neville, and Hermione was too busy wolfing down half a shepherd's pie to chasten Ron for his eating habits. In between mouthfuls of apple pie, Harry looked around the clearing. He wasn't quite sure where the light was coming from; as they were still underground, he fully expected it to be pitch black. The light seemed to be held in the air, and if you peered up towards the top of the cave, it was faintly luminous if you looked through enough of it. Although the regions under treetops were darker than those in the open, there weren't any distinct shadows as such.

When everyone finished eating they moved to lie on the grass, chatting idly about the cave and wondering whether anything lived in the forest and had brought them the food. Just as Ron was dozing off under a tree Ginny hit him with a light Stinging Hex. He gave a cry of surprise and sat up, firing a jet of cold water back at his sister who had to stop laughing and duck quickly to avoid getting drenched. Deciding to get involved, Hermione fired a silent blue spell at Harry which ducked to avoid. He retaliated with a Sneezing Jinx and ran for cover behind the table, taking a moment to animate a whole roast chicken and send it wobbling on its drumstick legs towards Hermione.

"Harry, that's awful!"

Spells were being cast in every direction; across the clearing, Ginny was busy shouting that Shield Charms weren't allowed. Hoping that Hermione was busy battling poultry, Harry sat up. Ron and Luna were waiting for him, and he was forced to retreat under a barrage of hexes and curses, running to the other end of the table and jumping over a Leg-Locker curse that whizzed by. A particularly large seafood platter came to his rescue and Harry crouched behind it, pausing for a moment to get his breath back. He peeked over the top of a lobster and had to duck again to avoid being flattened by a flying watermelon. Then the spellfire stopped and everyone started laughing. Luna had hit Neville with a _Tarantallegra_ and he was skipping around the clearing with a bemused look on his face, unable to control his dancing feet. Harry took advantage of the ceasefire to run through a gap in the ring of trees bordering the clearing.

He came to an abrupt stop. Something sharp was digging into his chest. He was looking into a lovely pair of brown eyes. He remembered seeing them in the Department of Mysteries. Not that they were the type of eyes you were likely to forget. Not that he would ever say such a thing out loud. Ginny was giving him with a challenging look. Harry felt something flutter in his chest again. It was probably fear. She knew far too many curses than could seriously injure him.

"Are you with me or against me, Miss Weasley?" he asked.

"You'll have to decide for yourself, Mr Potter", she said softly, smiling at him.

He had a sudden urge to memorise every eyelash and freckle. But that would take time away from looking into the eyes. He began to have all sorts of silly thoughts about how much he liked the eyes. He wondered whether the eyes liked him back. He hoped they did. Maybe he should tell the eyes how much he liked them. But what should he say? They were the nicest thing he'd seen all day, and he'd seen a really nice croissant. No, that was rubbish.

Unfortunately Ginny spoilt the moment by hitting him in the chest with a Jelly-Legs curse at point-blank range, and by the time Harry had recovered his wits, he was lying on the floor and his legs were wobbling.

"Treachery!" he screeched.

Ginny stuck her tongue out and laughed as Harry tried to stand up and fell over again. She turned around and ran off down the path. Harry remembered the counter-curse and raced after her. The path wove between trees and foliage, packed tightly on both sides to form a tunnel of green as they ran through the forest. Harry had to duck to avoid any particularly low-hanging branches. He assumed he would have no trouble catching Ginny, but she was surprisingly quick, and small enough for most of the overhanging branches not to be a problem. And in between jumping over shrubs and bushes, and making sure he didn't trip over any errant roots, he couldn't ever get close enough to her. Besides, he didn't really want to trip her up when she was running at full pelt, and hitting her in the back didn't seem like a very proper thing to do, especially when it was just light-hearted fun. Not that there weren't other fun things he could with Ginny. Harry's mind wandered, finding the idea of Ginny a very easy distraction, and he very nearly fell into a holly bush as a result.

He recovered and ran on, kicking up a flurry of leaves underfoot. They reached the end of the path and the forest opened up again into a small meadow, where waist-high grass swayed slowly in the wind like a sea in shades of yellow and green. The air smelt lovely. Ginny raced into the grass, and when she spun around to face Harry he was ready for her, hitting her in the stomach with a tickling charm. She erupted into fits of giggles and Harry tackled her with a triumphant shout. He landed on top of her, both of them cushioned by the long grass.

"Stop it – Harry!" Ginny sputtered, trying to glare at Harry but unable to manage more than a few seconds of looking serious before a new wave of giggles rose up and she started laughing again. Harry chuckled in response and cancelled the spell. There was a moment's silence. He looked down at Ginny, her hair fanning out in an orange halo and a pink glow in her cheeks. And all of sudden he realised he was straddling Ginny Weasley in the middle of a meadow and they were completely alone and she was still giggling a bit. Then she stopped laughing and gave him a hard, longing look. And then Harry was kissing Ginny and she was kissing him back and it was pure bliss and she was the only thing he knew as she put her hands on his chest and pulled him down next to her, so they were side by side now –

"Harry!"

He broke off, breathing heavily, trying to place Hermione's voice in the meadow and wishing she would leave him alone.

"Harry!"

Ron's voice. Ginny cursed and twisted round, lifting herself up to peek over the top of the grass, and then dropped back down with a frightened squeak.

"He's just over there", she said, whispering in Harry's ear in a way that made him forget all about Ron for a moment.

"If he uses the Point Me spell, we're toast", he whispered back.

They could hear muffled sound of someone wading through the grass towards them. Ginny pressed herself even closer to Harry, who had to try very hard not to think about the way she felt and how she smelled and the warmth of her body pressed against his.

"Dammit – Harry!" Ron yelled, no more than five metres away now. Ginny couldn't stop a few giggles escaping until Harry clamped a hand over her mouth. He wondered if he was allowed to do that. Ginny gave him an amused look.

"Let's go back, Ron", Hermione said. Ron muttered something in reply and Harr could hear their conversation starting to move away. Harry breathed his silent thanks that Ron never remembered to use spells. Then Ginny edged away from him, giving him a worried look, and he had another problem to contend with.

"This isn't because of what happened in the Department of Mysteries, is it? With Lucius, you're not doing this because you feel sorry for me, are you?"

Her eyes were deep with concern and Harry couldn't understand what he'd done to give her that impression.

"Of course not", he said, amazed she'd even think that. "It's more like the opposite."

"The opposite?" Ginny asked, a tentative smile forming at how incredulous Harry sounded.

"I'm feeling sorry for myself", Harry said. "For not thinking of doing this sooner." Ginny still looked confused so he kissed her.

And then he proceeded to do very little else for a while, and the world around them disappeared for a few perfect minutes as Harry did his very best to convince Ginny he wanted her for purely selfish reasons. They lay on their flattened patch of grass with nothing but the wind and the sunlit air for company, concealed from the outside world. Except this couldn't be true, because now Luna Lovegood was standing over them, clapping delightedly.

"Hi Luna", Ginny said, grinning madly and not at all fazed at being caught in such an incriminating position.

"Why hello there", Luna said, "and just what exactly have you two been up to here, rolling about in the long grass?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and then wriggled in between them so the three of them were lying side by side.

"Not anything, I hope, which would violate Educational Decree Three Hundred and Eleventy Seven", she continued in a slightly overdone Umbridge impression that nevertheless had Harry and Ginny laughing. Luna propped herself up on one elbow and turned to Harry, who noticed just how close she was.

"Oh Harry", she breathed, in a voice that made him feel very nervous. "Now you've sated your lust for Miss Weasley, do you think you could manage me as well?" she asked, batting her eyelashes.

At which point Ginny gave a shriek of mock outrage and tackled Luna to the ground, and the pair of them started rolling around, pretending to hit each other like they were five years old again, and Harry didn't think he'd ever seen anything quite as captivatingly silly as those two teenage girls pretending to throw tantrums and declaring that Harry was theirs and the other girl was a total trollop who fancied Colin Creevey. After lots of squealing and name calling, Luna eventually ran out of breath and allowed herself to be pinned by Ginny. Both girls had grass sticking out of their hair in every direction.

"Now", Ginny crowed, "you must admit the truth."

"Never!" Luna cried, struggling to shift Ginny but unable to escape. "I'll never say it."

"Very well then", Ginny said, pulling her wand out of her pocket. "I shall have to force you to say it."

Luna squealed and nearly succeeded in throwing Ginny off and escaping, but the Gryffindor witch held her down and brought her wand up.

"No! Not the tickling charm!" Luna cried. Harry wondered how effective the spell was when the recipient was already laughing, and how old Ginny and Luna had been when they'd come up with this game. Ginny was watching Luna with an evil smirk, waiting for her to crack.

"Fine, I'll tell you the truth", Luna gasped, laughing herself into submission without Ginny having to cast a spell.

"What is the truth?" Ginny said.

"That I love Neville Longbottom", Luna groaned, looking at Ginny with a sour expression but unable to stop herself from giggling.

"And how much do you love Neville Longbottom?"

"That's not fair", Luna said, "I never told Harry how much you loved him all these years, how much you longed and pined for him, I never showed him all those poems you—"

"How much do you love Neville Longbottom?"

"With all my heart", Luna said, admitting defeat with a lovelorn sigh, which caused both girls to erupt in laughter. And this was where the game ended, it seemed, as Ginny let Luna go and had to defend herself against a few more playful hits before they stopped and turned to look at Harry, who was smiling at their performance.

Ginny shuffled over to give him a quick kiss and lie down with her head resting on his stomach, chatting to Luna while Harry lazily ran a hand through her hair. She smiled up at him every now and then. They chatted about the caves for a while and wondered who had left them all the food until Luna caught Harry and Ginny sharing smiles. She said that it was alright for some, but by the time Neville had worked up the nerve to talk to her, she'd be old enough to be Mrs Albus Dumbledore. Harry tried to point out that Dumbledore would be even older by then and was quickly reminded by Luna that the Headmaster didn't age, because of reasons he didn't fully understand, but knew they involved a secret Philosopher's Stone and some of Fawkes' tail feathers.

And then Luna wondered aloud whether she should go and get Neville herself, and turned to Harry and asked him in a husky voice if he liked it when girls took the initiative, which made Ginny jump up and attack Luna again, but Luna won the tussle this time and forced Ginny to tell Harry how just how much she loved him and list all of her favourite things about her new boyfriend, causing both of them a great deal of embarrassment.

"Let's get back and see what Ron, Hermione and Neville have been getting up to", Luna said.

The three of them waded out of the meadow back to the path. They found Neville kneeling by the path, next to a spiky green shrub which looked like a miniature Christmas tree covered in lethal-looking black spikes.

"What's that, Neville?" Luna asked.

"It's magic." Neville declared happily, "Absolute magic." He turned around to see Harry and Ginny were standing next to Luna and holding hand and gave Harry a knowing smile. "Should I ask what you two have been up to?"

"This and that", Ginny said coyly, resting her head on Harry's shoulder. Harry couldn't stop smiling.

Luna convinced a reluctant Neville to leave his plant and they went to find Ron and Hermione. Ginny and Luna hurried off ahead of the other two, gossiping furiously, and from time to time one of them would glance back at Harry and Neville and giggle, and then they'd continue chatting again in excited whispers. This was something the two boys, walking about five paces behind them, couldn't fail to notice.

"Reckon you're the topic of conversation?" Neville asked.

"I dunno", Harry said, feeling quite worried at the idea. "They could just as easily be talking about you, though", he added, with a significant glance at Luna that drew a shy smile from Neville, who looked quite pleased at Harry's comment but chose to stay quiet. Which wasn't a bad thing, Harry reflected, and while Ginny and Luna could debate the merits of his kissing – in some detail by the sound of things – he wasn't so sure Neville wanted to hear about it. He considered asking Neville about Luna, but didn't really know what he would say, so he joined his roommate in companionable silence as they walked back to the forest clearing. Neville would occasionally point out a tree or bush that he found particularly interesting.

Back at the clearing, they found Ron and Hermione dozing off on separate benches. Ginny thought they should wake Ron up with an _Aguamenti_ and had to be talked out of it by Harry who said it was probably wasn't a good idea to antagonise Ron anytime soon. In truth, he didn't know how he was going to tell Ron about him and Ginny. All the same, he figured he had to make a good go of it, because he didn't think Ginny would be too impressed of boys who were scared of her older brother. Older brothers, Harry remembered with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd forgotten about Bill, Charlie, Fred and George, and even Percy. Maybe being stuck in some magical realm wasn't so bad; at least here there was only one Weasley brother he had to watch out for. Maybe kissing Ginny hadn't been the best idea. That wasn't true. It was the best idea he'd had in ages.

While Harry was engaged in this rather nervous internal dialogue, Neville had woken Ron and Hermione up.

"Where have you been?" Ron asked, looking rather put out.

"Harry tried to seduce me", Luna said flatly. "He's been chasing after me for hours, but I'm quite quick, you see."

Hermione made an exasperated noise, and Ron looked at them blankly. Neville chuckled, and Harry gave a rather nervous laugh. Somehow, he thought, if Ginny had said the same thing, Ron might have reacted differently. She was looking at Ron with a mischievous smirk.

"We could ask you the same question. It does seem rather suspicious that you and Hermione went missing –"

"—together." Neville added.

Both of them sat up rather quickly and began protesting this point vigorously.

"What are you implying?" Ron huffed. "You were the ones that ran off. We spent an hour trying to find you, didn't we Hermione?"

"Yes", Hermione said slowly, although she didn't look too happy at Ron's haste to dismiss the allegations. Ron had gone quite pink. Ginny grinned at her brother's expense.

"Shall we get going, then?" Harry asked, tactfully intervening before Ron and Hermione could start bickering. He wandered over to the door and opened it. There was the corridor they'd left that morning. He closed it, and opened it again. The corridor was still there. He tried a few more times, always getting the same result.

"How does it do that?" Ron complained, "it keeps sending us right back to where we came from."

"It must be advanced spatial magic", Hermione said. The others shrugged and walked back into the corridor.

Ron propped the door open with a chair from the table, and had the sensible thought of bringing the rest of the food back through before they left the woodland cave. The others thought this was a great idea, and everyone spent the next five minutes carrying food back to the corridor. They stacked it in a corner at the far end where Hermione placed as many preserving charms as she could remember on their haul. Provided they could return to the corridor, they'd have enough to eat for a few weeks.

Once they'd brought the last of the food through, Harry closed the door and then tried opening it. To no one's surprise it stayed locked. It seemed they were stuck in the corridor for another night.

Throughout the afternoon, Luna and Neville had fun making veiled comments about Harry and Ginny and watching them squirm. Luckily Ron and Hermione looked more bemused than suspicious, and Harry reckoned they were safe for the time being. Having slept poorly the night before, everyone snoozed for a few hours, finding it easier to sleep now they'd eaten. Harry stayed in his bunk when he woke up, wondering what had happened to Sirius in the day since they'd left the Department of Mysteries and whether his godfather was alright, until Ginny told him to stop moping and help Hermione and her conjure some knives and forks so they could eat supper. Apart from a few breadknives, they'd forgotten to bring any cutlery back.

Ron spent the afternoon carving chess pieces out of a branch he'd lopped off a tree. He'd commissioned Harry to make the board, who'd painted a corner of the corridor in black and white squares. Ginny had been allowed to whittle the kings and queens, because she was much better than Ron with a penknife, and in truth no one could really tell the difference between the bishops and pawns apart from Ron, the others keeping quiet so as not to hurt his feelings.

After supper Luna broke a few twigs off Ron's branch and transfigured them into paint brushes. She managed to conjure a painting palette and was currently daubing the wall by her bunk with a look of concentration. She finished by whispering a few spells into the wall; it sounded like she knew some pretty good animation charms. And now a red and yellow griffin with only one eyebrow that flapped along the walls and squawked at a rather lopsided badger that chased it to admiring noises from Ginny and Neville. Hermione had been heard to mutter that the paintings weren't very good at all and that the animals were all out of proportion, after which Luna had retreated under her duvet, visibly upset, and she'd said if people really didn't like them, she'd take them down. Ginny and Neville sat at the foot of Luna's bunk for an hour telling her how much they loved the paintings and getting Harry to provide the occasional compliment. They also managed to persuade Luna to remove the rather unflattering sketch of Hermione she'd spent the rest of the evening making. After a bit of coercion from Ron, Hermione apologised for what she had said, and Luna said that all was forgiven in equally stilted tones. Then there was an uncomfortable silence and everyone went back to their own bunks for the night.


	4. IV: The Whispering Book

IV: The Whispering Book, or, How to Vanquish Your Enemies, or, Comfort Given for Sadness Shared

* * *

Harry woke to the sound of running water. He peered down the corridor to see a shower curtain, behind which steam rose in a steady plume towards the ceiling. Hermione was sitting next to it, casting _Aguamentis_ and heating charms into a series of pipes that ran behind the curtain. It seemed the girls had built a shower while he'd been sleeping. Harry was going to get up and investigate, but his attention turned to the stack of food they'd brought back yesterday instead. Deciding that breakfast in his bunk wasn't a bad idea, he lazily summoned a few scones from the top of the pile and began to eat.

After a few minutes Ginny came out from behind the shower curtain, wrapped in nothing but a fluffy white towel. Harry immediately forgot all about his breakfast and watched her hungrily. Ginny thanked Hermione and walked back down the corridor towards her bunk, smiling at Harry. She stopped to look into Ron's bunk; satisfied her brother was still asleep, she came over to Harry and slipped easily into his lap, linking her arms around his neck.

"Morning", she murmured.

"Hey you", Harry said softly.

Ginny leant in to kiss him, and Harry passed a blissful minute with nothing but the sensation of soft lips against his and the damp tickle of hair that smelt lovely. Then Ginny broke off, giggling slightly as she turned to look at Hermione, who was watching the two of them with amused surprise. Harry gave her a sly smile and went back to his breakfast. Ginny hopped into her own bunk above his.

Once he'd finished eating, and taken a moment to wonder if Hermione would object if he joined Ginny in her bunk, Harry went over to have a look at the shower. He got roped into casting charms so Hermione and Luna could have showers, and then had to persuade Neville to take over from him so he could have his own shower.

In the end everyone had showers, and lined up behind the black door. Ron stepped up to it and opened the door slowly; behind him, Hermione was being put under whispered orders from Ginny not to tell him anything about her and Harry.

It was pitch black behind the door, and Ron shivered as he stepped through; the air was damp and chilly. He cast a _Lumos_, and found himself at the end of a grey passage, similar to the one that had led to the corridor. Behind them, the black door was set into a wall of sheer rock, and the way forward was blocked by a pile of stones which had been carefully stacked to form a wall. Harry and the others came through after Ron. The only way out seemed to be through the wall.

The six of them spent a few minutes summoning stones from the wall and leaving them in small piles by their feet. Part of the wall collapsed near Hermione. A jet of water came through, and she had to step quickly to avoid it. Everyone stopped to see if they'd made any progress. An ominous rumbling sound came from behind the wall and a second jet burst through, higher up than the first.

"I think it's a dam", Ron said, sounding worried. A few stones rolled down from the top of the wall.

Then a third jet appeared, and then a fourth, and there was a low rumbling noise as the wall collapsed and a torrent of water rushed in, flooding them instantly. Harry saw Neville's wand spin past him as he was engulfed by the wall of water, driving all the air from his lungs and extinguishing his _Lumos_. He spun through icy, dizzying darkness, the sound of rushing water filling his ears as he kept a white-knuckled grip on his wand. His knee slammed hard into something solid, and Harry winced as rocks and stones pelted him. Half a minute passed as he was swept around by currents. Desperate for air, he tried to cast a bubble-head charm, but the words came out in a watery gurgle. Panic rose in his chest and he forcing himself to concentrate on casting the spell silently, struggling to ignore the pressure building in his head and the ringing in his ears.

A bubbled of air formed around his head, flickered and disappeared. Icy saltwater filled his mouth. Cold terror threatened to overwhelm him, and he lost another few seconds panicking as he struggled to compose himself and recast the spell. The bubble popped back into existence. Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes, visualising light spilling out of his wand, and after concentrating on the image for a few seconds, he opened his eyes. A ball of white light was glowing at the end of his wand.

It did little to shift the darkness, but he could see two forms above him. Ron and Ginny were scrabbling frantically for air at the top of the cave. They noticed the light and turned towards Harry. He swam over to them, casting two bubble-head charms in succession. Both found their targets and were received with grateful breaths. Harry sent the ball of light out into the centre of the cave, searching desperately for the others and dreading what he might find. The cave was completely submerged by now.

Hermione had been swept right down the passage. She'd been able to cast her own bubble-head charm and was swimming back towards the others. Luna was sitting on the floor, now covered in a layer of stones and debris beneath them. With a flick of her wand, she was making large bubbles that she could breathe through, one at a time.

Then Harry spotted Neville, and his blood ran cold. Neville was fumbling blindly for his wand on the floor, becoming more and more sluggish; it was clear that he was very nearly out of air. Before Harry and Luna, who were closest, could get to him he stopped moving and lay still. Harry froze and let out a cry that only he could hear.

Luna reached Neville and sent bubbles into his mouth, her hands trembling with each spell. Nothing happened. Neville floated in the water, still as a corpse. Luna kept clutching at Neville's shoulders and shaking him, and Harry had to swim over to Luna and cast a bubble-head charm on her, because in her distress she wasn't remembering to feed herself any bubbles.

Half a minute passed. Dread filled Harry's stomach. Ginny swam over to Luna and tried to pull her away from Neville's body, but the sobbing Ravenclaw witch wouldn't budge. Then Neville shuddered, once, and coughed violently. Luna fed him more bubbles, a look of barely concealed hope in her eyes. The hiccups lessened and Neville relaxed, swallowing the bubbles; his eyes shot open and he looked around in a panic until he spotted Luna and remembered where he was. He smiled at her, and she gave him a clumsy underwater embrace. Then Luna pulled away, unable to stop herself sobbing, and swam away from the group in an effort to hide her tears. Neville watched her go, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

The others crowded round Neville, wanting to make sure he was alright. Ron retrieved Neville's wand and handed it to him. Neville looked around at the others and gave them a thumbs up – no one could hear each other underwater – and motioned down the passage, which had been made accessible by the rock fall.

Harry nodded, and swam back down the cave to find Luna. She was hovering in the dark by the black door and gave him a teary smile as he tried to explain what they were going to do. He couldn't get much across with hand signals, and had to resort to pointing at the wall until Luna nodded. The two of them swam back to the others, and the group set off up the passage. Most of the wall had collapsed which enabled them to swim over it easily. Swimming for another minute brought them to the mouth of the cave.

Harry emerged out into the open sea. The cave they'd been in was no more than a fissure near the top of a submerged cliff. Light filtered down from the surface. There was only inky darkness below them; the seafloor must have been some way off, and Harry felt a twinge of unease as he peered into the vast, watery emptiness around him. He struck out for the surface and the others followed him. Everyone cancelled their bubble-head charms as they broke through the waves, drawing in lungfuls of fresh, salty air.

Above them, purple-black storm clouds rumbled and drifted below the stone ceiling of a cave. There was only water in every direction and Harry was impressed by the sheer size of the cave; for it was certainly much bigger than any cave in our world, if it could hold a small sea inside it. Echoes of thunder rolled in from beyond the horizon.

"What are we going to do?" Ron asked, treading water. The others shrugged in response. An idea came to Harry in a flash of inspiration.

"Glacius!" he said, pointing his wand down into water beside him.

A platform of ice materialised as the spell hit the water. There must have been some magic in the sea, because as the spell streaked away, a great white arc spread out beneath it. It rose above the waves into the distance, forming a passage of ice thick enough to walk on. Harry clambered onto the platform and helped the others out of the water. Once everyone had cast enough drying and warming charms to make themselves comfortable, they set off along the path of ice.

After a time they came to a small island. It was a rocky outcrop, grey and crusted with lichen, which barely rose above the waves, and being grey and full of puddles made it almost invisible against the sea. If the path hadn't led straight to the island, Harry was sure they never would have found it. In the middle of the island was a wooden pulpit. Long ago, it wouldn't have been of place in a fine church, but it had been battered by the wind and warped by the sea, and now looked about as impressive as the island it stood upon.

They walked over to the pulpit, intrigued. The staircase was only wide enough for one. Harry climbed up to the top, where a thick, leather-bound book had been placed. He brushed the dust and salt from the cover to reveal symbols written in peeling gold print. Some of the symbols were familiar from the black door. Harry opened the book.

Now, the best way to describe Harry's experience is to imagine you have been taught a language when you were a very small child. As you grow up, for whatever reason, you stop learning and speaking in this language, and after several years you forget you could ever speak it. Then, many years after this you hear someone speaking the same language and to your own surprise, you can understand it. You can't say for sure what any of the individual words mean, or how you can understand the language.

And so it was for Harry. After staring blankly at the first page for a few seconds, he began to understand what was written on it. There were three charms; the first was to stop wood rotting, the second turned seawater into freshwater, and the last one could let you store sunlight in a bottle. Beside each charm was an incantation written in a neatly flowing script. There was also an animated drawing to help the reader understand the effects of each spell. He turned the page and grinned at a sketch of himself summoning fish out of a lake.

Harry flicked through the spellbook, stopping now and then to admire a particularly detailed drawing, or an interesting spell he'd never heard of before. The first chapters were filled with simple charms; you only had to say a sentence or two to know the age of certain trees, or when it would next rain. Most of the spells were harmless, and some looked quite fun. There was one you could cast to make your hands glow in the dark, and another that made you light as a feather; next to this one was a sketch of a wizard dancing on a cloud. Harry found himself wishing he could read the book aloud.

The book must have been centuries old, he thought, as he read a rather medieval chapter, which taught him how to build a magical catapult and fire it, among other things. There was also a particularly useful spell you could cast on your sword to ensure the blade never dulled and the metal never rusted. The chapter ended with a nasty spell that sent a stream of boiling tar at your enemy. Harry thought the sketched version of himself looked a bit too happy dousing people in tar.

As he read on, the spells became more complex. Many of them required precise spellcasting and long incantations. Some of the spells were really impressive; there was one for perfect balance on horseback, and another to be cast on a bowstring that ensured your arrows always flew true. You could increase the harvest of crops by casting special charms on soils. And two whole pages were filled with a long list of ingredients to make a potion that made it so you no longer needed sleep.

In the middle of the book, there were several beautifully coloured pictures of magical creatures. Many of them Harry had never seen before, and there were others he thought only existed in myth. He read on, fascinated; there were whole pages filled with advice on dealing with satyrs and fauns, what to do if you met a manticore and how to defeat a sea-serpent, which Harry learned were impervious to all things except fire. He glanced up and studied the sea nervously.

If you were building a house in a magical forest, there were offerings for dryads and other forest nymphs you could leave. There was a whole chapter on which trees you were allowed to chop down and which ones were sacred to the forest spirits and had to be treated with respect.

Several pages were covered in detailed construction diagrams, which informed the reader how to build powerful magical objects; there was a pool that allowed you to see events happenings in far-off lands; armour that protected the wearer from almost every hex and jinx; a silver flute that awoke river spirits when you played it. There was an elaborate time-turner that didn't rewind time, but instead enabled the wearer to experience time at half-speed, and last of all was a pair of magnificent wardrobes built from white oak. If you stepped into one, you would always emerge from the other, no matter how far apart they were.

But not everything in the book was pleasant. Harry skipped a whole chapter on how you could use cooking and skinning charms meant for animals on people. The chapter that followed was devoted to the lost art of fashioning objects out of earth and water; it was a very old form of elemental magic he wasn't familiar with.

Finally Harry came to the last chapter of the book, which promised wonderful and terrible things. There were spells to grow trees that bore everlasting fruit, and others that let you talk to birds and animals. But most of the chapter was powerful dark magic. If he was so inclined, Harry could make boiling water pour from clouds and bring comets falling out of the sky. He read spells to bring down castles, to lead armies astray, and even a long poem that, if recited, would stop the Sun and Moon in their orbits for one hour. There were rituals that made it so you could commune with creatures that lived in the deep, forgotten places of the world.

And so Harry came to the last page in the book. On it was a spell that promised to teach him how to vanquish any enemies he had. In the very centre of the page, between the columns of text, was a sketch of him and Voldemort duelling. Harry went very still and stared at the picture.

A couple of symbols at the top of the page glowed blue. Then a voice sounded in Harry's head. He looked around him, expecting to see someone talking nearby, but the island was silent. The others were watching him quietly from the bottom of the pulpit. The voice spoke again, and Harry spun around, unable to find the source of the voice. For a third time he heard it, repeating the same phrase, and he realised it was an inner echo that only he could hear.

The voice kept coaxing him to speak. Harry paused, and then repeated the strange syllables. The blue light at the top of the page grew brighter. The voice said a different phrase and Harry copied it. The blue light raced halfway along the top line and Harry realised with a thrill of excitement that he was saying the incantation for the spell. He carried on, growing confident as he sped through the lines. Harry closed his eyes, only focusing on sound of the voice and his own. In no time at all he came to the end of the spell. He opened his eyes. He peered around the cave from his vantage point on the pulpit. Nothing happened; he didn't feel more powerful than he had a couple of minutes ago, or know how he would defeat Voldemort. He looked down at the book. The blue light winked at him, only halfway down the page. The picture had changed. Harry gasped.

The sketch of him and Voldemort had vanished. Now Lily and James Potter were smiling and waving up at him from their place in the middle of the page. Harry's heart leapt at the sight. The voice began in his head again and he repeated every syllable eagerly.

Now if Harry had been thinking clearly, he would have known that it was a very bad idea to carry on with a spell that he didn't understand. But being presented with a chance to be united with his parents was something he couldn't pass up, and kept reading. He'd convinced himself the spell was only half-finished, and when he completed it he'd have his parents back and be able to defeat Voldemort.

A dark presence crept out of the book as he read on. Something malevolent was being released from the book, unnoticed by Harry; it grew with each sentence he finished and hung in between every syllable he uttered, heavy with the weight of ritual magic. Even the tone of the voice that whispered to Harry changed. If it had been soothing at the start of the spell, it now sounded malicious. And Harry's own voice changed; it became deep and sonorous, like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. A shadowy substance bled into the air and swelled with every syllable he repeated. Black tendrils, growing longer and thicker, snaked around Harry, cloaking him in a freezing mist. Evil stood beside him on the pulpit. And still he read on, giving no notice to anything apart from the book.

The picture changed again; he was walking along a grassy verge, and with a flick of his wand, he revived his parents, and they were walking next to him with ghastly smiles. Then Harry faltered slightly, struck by how grotesque and unnatural his parents looked. And a new voice rang through his head, sounding like he stood on the pulpit beside him even though Harry knew he was another world away.

_No spell can awaken the dead, Harry._

Dumbledore's echo. Harry faltered for a moment, losing his place in the spell, and the voice stopped to urge him on, growing stronger and dividing itself so a chorus rang through his head. An uneasy feeling filled Harry. But seeing himself walking hand in hand with his parents had brought out a desperate yearning in him. He pressed on with the spell, clinging to the hope that those laws of magic only applied in his own world, and here, in these underground caves of forests and seas and creatures that shrieked in the dark, he could be reunited with his parents at last. And yet, a nagging voice in the back of his head reminded him, when had Dumbledore ever been wrong about something that concerned magic? He looked at his parents again, and for the first time he noticed that their eyes didn't seem to focus on anything as they walked beside him with their fixed and ghastly smiles. Even their walk was disconcerting, Harry thought, as he saw how rigid and measured every movement they made was, looking just like puppets brought into animation.

"Oh – Harry –"

Hermione had come up onto the pulpit. She gave him a sympathetic look. For a moment he hated her. She didn't know anything. She didn't know what it was like to want something this badly; she didn't know what it was like to lose someone you loved more than yourself.

Harry pressed on with the spell, following the trail of blue that hurried across the page. The voices quickened, and he knew he was nearing the end of the spell. He glared at Hermione, chanting in unison with the voices that filled his head; he didn't even have to look at the book now. Hermione shrank away from him, frightened, and hurried back down the staircase, leaving him alone on the pulpit. Harry turned back to the book, and the voices murmured their approval, telling him how close he was to finishing the spell. His heart leapt at the thought of being held in the warm, loving embraces of his parents. The trail of blue hurried on; only a few lines left and he'd be done.

A hand closed around his own, smaller and warmer than his. Ginny was standing next to him, studying the book with a frown.

"It tells you about all these things – about love, and about friendship. It tells you how happy you can be, if only you'll trust it. But it's all lies."

There was a tremor of fear in her voice as she looked at Harry. He hesitated, and the voices urged him on, telling him how close he was to seeing his parents, how close he was to having a family that loved him, cared for him, and would do anything for him. And now Sirius was gone, he had no one. He could have a family again. He could leave the Dursleys. A savage determination spurred Harry on, and he continued. The trail of blue was almost at the bottom of the page now.

"Please Harry. I know what it's like."

He looked at Ginny for the first time. He looked into those brown eyes, wide with concern, and he knew what she was thinking. He remembered finding her cold, limp body in the Chamber next to Tom. He looked back at the book, where James and Lily waved at him from the page in their false bodies.

A hot, sickly feeling of horror rose up within Harry and he paused, fighting against the compulsion to finish the spell and the hopeful, stubborn part of him that still believed he could see him parents. Syllables escaped his lips and the blue light inched ever closer; he lunged at the book and slammed it shut. The voices disappeared. The freezing, black mist vanished. Ginny stepped towards him but he slipped past her. He knew she was just trying to console him, but he didn't want to hear it; he didn't want to be made to feel better, or to be told it was alright.

Hermione, Ron, Neville and Luna stood at the bottom of the pulpit. He saw, with some dismay, that he'd upset Hermione; she was wiping her eyes and refused to look at him.

"You alright Harry?" Ron asked hesitantly. "We could hear you talking to someone…"

He gave Harry a questioning look. Harry came down the pulpit steps with his head bowed, struggling to compose himself. Ron frowned.

"You alright?" he asked again.

"It's nothing." Harry said, shrugging Ron off and looking out to the furthest tip of the island, where a familiar black door had appeared. Ron muttered something about just asking. Harry brushed past him and walked over to the door, stopping for a moment to gaze out across the flat, featureless sea. The last, awful line of the ritual lingered in his head, and for a brief moment he was tempted to utter it. He knew nothing good would come of it, but he felt so helpless that he could hardly bring himself to care.

A pair of footsteps had followed him as he stood looking out over the sea. He turned around. Ginny was standing behind him, looking nervous. She's scared of me, too, Harry thought, feeling desperately ashamed as Ginny stared at him, pale and wide-eyed with worry. He couldn't bear to see her looking at him like that.

He turned away and walked over to open the door. As expected, it led to the corridor. He walked through and fell into his bunk, lying facing the wall. Ginny came through and sat by his feet. She was waiting for him to talk, but try as he might, Harry couldn't think of anything to say, and after a couple of minutes she got up and left him. Someone left a plate of sandwiches next to his pillow. He wasn't hungry but he ate them anyway, knowing Hermione would pester him to eat something if he didn't.

The rest of the afternoon passed in miserable contemplation. Harry didn't eat any supper. A few hours later someone dimmed the lights and he could hear others going to bed. He rolled over. Luna was watching him from her bunk on the opposite wall. Harry looked back at her listlessly. She kept watching him patiently, and as those silver eyes bore into his, a fresh wave of sorrow rose within in him, and Harry knew for certain he'd lost his parents again, and in all likelihood, Sirius was gone too.

He muffled a sob into his hand. Luna silently hurried over to sit beside him. Harry didn't move away, or say anything; usually he'd be ashamed of crying in front of someone else, but Luna had an understanding quality about her. He gave her a cracked smile and she edged towards him, reluctant to do or say anything in case he snapped at her.

A hand was tentatively placed on Harry's shoulder. Luna gave him a gentle hug, and after a few seconds he gave in and hugged her back, grateful to have someone close. She understood, and he knew she understood. She'd been through the same thing. She knew about losing parents and the childhoods lost along with them. He felt slightly guilty that he was seeking comfort from another girl while Ginny slept above him. But Luna didn't seem to mind.

"Thank you", he whispered.

"Sadness can be difficult to bear alone, Harry", Luna whispered back, tears shining in her eyes.


	5. V: The Great Lugubrious Wood

V: The Great Lugubrious Wood, or, the Burnishing Pool, or, a Trouble of Their Own Making

* * *

Harry was still subdued the next morning. Hermione and Ron were able to coax the occasional comment or response from him, but for the most part he kept to himself. After nearly drowning yesterday, no one was in a hurry to go through the black door today. They ate their breakfast slowly, and cleared up at much the same pace. When the plates had been scrubbed for the third time, the six of them walked down the corridor reluctantly and stood by the door.

Harry stepped forward, silently wondering why he was always the one who was expected to jump into peril first. He waited for Neville and Hermione to move into position behind him and then eased the door open a fraction, letting them aim their wands through the crack. Nothing stirred behind the door. He swung it open and stepped back to look through the doorway.

"This looks alright", Ron said, relief evident in his voice.

"Famous last words", Neville said grimly.

They were looking at a wood. Harry would have called it a forest but the trees were spaced too far apart for that. He stepped out of the corridor and the others followed him. The six of them formed a loose circle, holding their wands out as they inspected the wood. While the forest they'd visited two days past had held a great variety of trees, the trees in this wood all looked remarkably similar; they had thin dark trunks which looked black until you stepped towards one and saw they were actually dark brown. None of them had any branches for the first twenty feet, after which they fanned out, forming a leafy green canopy. If Harry had to describe them, he would have said they were a cross between palm trees and pine trees, except they bore no visible fruit. Although there was no way of telling, it seemed to be the middle of the afternoon; the light and shadows slept side by side, and without birdsong or the buzzing of insects, the silence felt calm and organic.

Luna slipped out of her shoes and began to wander away from the doorway, which looked peculiar stand on its own between two trees, completely unsupported. The familiar grey walls of their corridor could still be seen through the door until Hermione closed it and walked after Luna. Soon everyone had taken their shoes off and was walking barefoot, enjoying the soft ground between their toes and chatting about what they thought lived in the forest. Neville was worried they were going to get lost because he thought every tree looked the same and they didn't have any points of reference. And he was mostly right, because apart from the odd root poking through the mossy carpet, the ground was completely level and featureless. In fact, there was no sign of any life in the forest, either tracks or the sound of wildlife. Even the trees were unusually still, and their waxy barks reminded Harry of the cheap brown suits Uncle Vernon wore.

Between branches there was a familiar grey ceiling above, and with a sinking feeling Harry realised they had come to yet another cave. Again he had the horrible thought that perhaps they weren't ever going to get out of the caves. He supposed everyone must have been thinking along the same lines but no one wanted hear it voiced out aloud.

After walking for a couple of minutes, and wondering why they were trusting Luna's internal compass, the six of them came to a small pool which was bordered by a ring of white rocks. The pool was circular in shape and had a bed of pebbles. It gave off a pleasant orange glow. Harry walked over and picked up a pebble by the water's edge, turning it over in his hand a few times.

"Come and look at this", he said to nobody in particular. Ginny and Neville came to stand next to him first. Harry showed them the pebble which was polished yellow on one side and dull grey on the other. Ginny reached out to take the pebble. She let her hand linger in Harry's for moment before it closed around the pebble, and Harry hoped the moment of shared intimacy meant she was closer to forgiving him for yesterday.

"It feels really heavy on this side but it's much lighter on the other", she said, showing them the yellow half.

"What do you reckon it is?" Neville asked, peering at the pebble as Ginny handed it to him. By now everyone was interested.

"It looks like gold."

Hermione scoffed. "You don't just find gold lying around like that."

"Maybe someone made it," Ginny ventured.

"Every alchemist knows you can't make gold", Hermione said in a very matter-of-fact tone. "Lots of wizards and witches have wasted their entire lives trying to do it, and none of them ever succeeded."

"Our Mum has a spell to see if something is gold or not", Ron said, "You know, so you can tell if someone's trying to fob you off, giving you fake galleons." He took the pebble from Neville and handed it to his sister.

"Opes verum, aurum bellum," Ginny sang, pointing her wand at the pebble. It glowed white briefly and began humming.

"That means it's real", Ron informed everyone, looking pleased at being able to provide some useful information.

"Where did it come from?" Hermione asked.

"The pool, probably", Ginny said coolly. Hermione looked ready to dispute this, but didn't have any better suggestions. In the meantime, Neville had wandered across to the pool and found another pebble with a yellow glint.

"Does it just coat stuff, or really turn it into gold?" Ron asked, getting excited at the thought of a pool which could turn things into gold.

Harry dug his fingernails into his pebble, leaving four small crescent-shaped marks in the soft yellow substance, and suddenly went very cold. "It really turns it into gold", he said softly.

"Imagine if a person fell into the pool..." Hermione said with a look of horror.

Ron and Ginny had stopped listening. As soon as Harry said it was real gold, they had begun summoning stones from the pool, forgetting in their haste the risk of getting any water droplets on their skin. They left them in piles by their feet, many of them still dripping and turning spots of moss into gold. After hesitating briefly, Neville joined in, and three small mounds of solid gold grew with each _Accio_.

Harry and Hermione watched them, baffled at the sudden change in behaviour of their three friends.

Ginny's eyes were oddly bright. "Just imagine what we could do with all this!" She said, glancing across to see how much Ron and Neville had accumulated.

"No more hand-me-downs!" Ron said happily.

"I could buy my own wand!" Neville interjected.

"Give it a rest, Ron", Harry said weakly, not entirely sure what he should do, but feeling compelled to act all the same. "How are you going to carry all this gold, anyway?"

Ron stopped his summoning and rounded on Harry. "Easy for you to say, with your nice vault in Gringotts. You can anything you want – Nimbuses, Firebolts – whenever you want, can't you?"

"I never asked for any of it." Harry said, hating the mocking grin Ron had plastered on his face, "you know I'd give it to you in a minute, if you weren't so proud."

"Not so happy now, are you?" Ginny said, glaring at Harry with an ugly glint in her eye. "Now we've got just as much gold as you have."

Harry made to speak but stopped, stung by Ginny's tone; he knew he'd frightened her yesterday, but he never thought she'd react like this. Hermione was on the verge of tears.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it! All of you, just stop it!" She cried, looking at Ron and Ginny with horror.

"Shut up Hermione!" Ginny shouted spitefully, giving the other witch a venomous glare.

"Leave her alone, Ginny", Harry snarled, starting to get angry.

"Who put you in charge, mate?" Ron retorted.

"No one did", Harry said sharply, struggling to stay calm, "but it won't do you any good Ron – just leave it."

Watching all this was Luna, who sat cross-legged at the base of a tree, some distance from the argument. A look of profound sorrow held her features in uneasy countenance.

"You don't know what it's like, every time we meet someone like the Malfoys, they look at us like we're scum, like we're nothing!" Ginny spat.

Neville had stopped summoning gold pebbles and was looking down at his pile guiltily.

"I guess you're right", Hermione bit back sarcastically, "if only there was a pool that could turn nasty Mudbloods like me into Purebloods, then all I could solve all my problems."

She glared at Ginny, tears spilling over and falling silently down her cheeks. Ginny didn't even have the grace to look ashamed. Ron turned to Harry angrily.

"It's your bloody fault we're trapped in this godforsaken maze, in these caves where either something always tries to kill us or drown us, and everyone knows we're completely stuck here but no one wants to say it when you made us rush off to the Ministry, and Sirius – Sirius is probably dead by now, anyway."

Harry felt something snap inside him. He had a sudden urge to hurt Ron as much as possible.

"Well you know what I think? I think Hermione's too good for you. I'm not surprised you're ashamed to be Bill and Charlie's brother, knowing that – that you'll never amount to anything."

Harry and Ron both went for their pockets, and a shimmering disc of blue appeared, joined by another one almost immediately. Luna had placed a shield charm between the two boys and Neville had copied her. They glared at each other furiously; Ron looked like he would have no trouble casting an Unforgiveable. Hermione looked perfectly miserable. Neville had begun to send his gold stones back into the pool, one at a time.

"There's another door over there", Luna said bluntly. She sounded so tired, so bored, so normal, so unlike her usual self that everyone turned to look at her. A silent moment passed as Harry and Ron, still breathing heavily, glared at each other. Then Luna cancelled her shield charm and walked off into the forest. After a moment's hesitation, the others followed her. A sniffling Hermione ran over to Harry, who hugged and silently consoled her, determined not to look back at the pool. Ginny looked at her pile of gold longingly until Neville, who had recovered his presence of mind admirably, guided her carefully away. Ron followed the others at a distance.

Luna led them to the door. No one bothered asking how she found it. They went through in silence and the familiar surroundings of the corridor were a blessed relief.


	6. VI: Horrors in the Mist

VI: Horrors in the Mist, or, Wanderlust, or, What Became of Sharing a Bunk

* * *

Despite Hermione's best attempts, there was very little conversation at breakfast the next morning. Ron and Harry wouldn't look at each other; Ginny was too ashamed to talk to anyone, and Neville was even quieter and more withdrawn than usual. This left Hermione and Luna, who weren't even speaking the day before, to carry the conversation by themselves. Plates and glasses were cleaned and stacked in silence, and then everyone made their way to the end of the corridor.

Harry could feel Ginny watching him as they waited for Neville to open the door. He turned towards her but she looked away quickly. Thoughts of the meadow, of laughing and kissing in the long grass, came to him and he wondered how things could possibly have gone so wrong between them in just two days.

Neville opened the door and peered through the doorway.

"It's safe", he said.

They were in a grey, square room, consisting of four bare walls, a whitewashed floor and a stone ceiling. Torches flickered dimly from the walls. In the middle of the room there was a thin gold pedestal, on which a curious music box had been placed. It was made from dark, polished wood and inlaid with a gold border. Harry knew just by looking at it that the box was magical; it hummed with barely contained energy. He walked over with Ron and Neville to take a closer look. A small black latch held the lid of the box in place. Neville put a hand on the box and fiddled with the latch. It glowed briefly and he jerked his hand away, wincing and clutching his fingers as if he'd been scalded.

"It's burning hot", he hissed, rubbing his fingertips. Harry hurried over to look at Neville's hand. The fingertips were singed, but there didn't appear to be any serious damage. He cast a cooling charm on his friend's fingers.

"That better?"

"Yeah. Thanks", Neville said, turning back to the box. "Well, look at that. Almost pretty enough to get burnt for."

Small trails of light had begun to weave and turn across the surface of the box, warning the boys against furthering tampering. Spirals of gold and silver flowed over the grain of the wood, and then faded to be replaced by new patterns. There was something hypnotic about the way the light traced its flowing forms as it spun, twisted and wove around itself, sometimes splitting to form new streams which curled into small eddies, glowing brightly for a moment before they faded and vanished into the wood.

Now that the latch had been loosened a rattling sound came from inside the box, and it shook slightly. Harry had the sudden notion that something beautiful was being kept in the box, and it was trying to get out. Not wanting to get his hand burnt, and feeling sure the box could only be opened by magic, he took his wand out and tapped the box once. It opened with a click. A melody started to play; it was faint at first, but grew louder until it filled the room. Long, honeyed notes hung in the air, and the boys crept forward, drawn towards the lovely music. It was aural syrup, warm and soothing; if you could hear a Patronus Charm, Harry thought, it would probably sound similar.

Then the texture of the air began to change. It became thicker and cooler, and a mist formed at the base of the pedestal as the air condensed. Harry shivered. The mist crept forward, and if not for the melody playing the boys might have started to worry. But the lovely melody drove all other thoughts from their heads, and they were content to stand still and let the mist swallow them. Harry looked around for the others, but couldn't find them through the grey haze. Ron and Neville had disappeared, but he wasn't concerned. How could he be when that music was playing?

The outline of a person, dark against the pale mist, came into view and Harry stepped towards it. Ginny emerged from the tremulous banks of fog, and her perfect, pearly skin seemed to glow white against the grey mist. She was sleek, flawless, watching Harry with an unnaturally fierce expression which made her look beautiful.

If Harry had been thinking clearly, he would have noticed a few things were slightly off about this Ginny: she was a few inches too tall and her eyes, which should have been brown, were flecked with gold. She smiled, and her teeth – there were rows of them, set back deep into her mouth, longer and sharper than any person's teeth could be. There was no space for a tongue; where it should have been, there was an empty, black maw.

But Harry noticed none of this. He just gazed at her, mesmerised, sure he'd never seen anything so lovely in his life. He stepped towards her, and Ginny made a noise that was supposed to be a girly laugh, but it came out as a deep, guttural noise. A shiver of unease ran up Harry's spine. He faltered and remembered there was another Ginny, who had a real, unaffected laugh he liked much better. But all thoughts of this Ginny were like half-forgotten memories of events that happened years ago, and he faltered again, not sure if this distant Ginny had ever existed. And yet, he'd been with her in the meadow, where they'd held hands and kissed – he was sure of that.

He took a step away from the Ginny in front of him, thinking desperately and trying to remember things that the music box didn't want him to.

What happened next was so quick, that even afterwards he could never be sure if he'd really seen it, or if it only appeared in his nightmares. Ginny suddenly began convulsing and blurring, and for a second he saw something much larger and darker with a feral, inhuman expression, a black maw for a mouth. Where her lovely golden eyes had been, there were empty, gaping black sockets. A scream rose in his throat but before he could react the daemon was gone, and Ginny was slipping out of her robe and leaving it in a puddle of silk by her feet, and every rational thought went straight out of Harry's head. She made a light, tinkling noise that must have been a poor attempt at giggling, but he didn't care; to his ears, it was pure syrup.

Ginny motioned for him to come closer and he eagerly obeyed. She smiled; a feral, predatory grin, but all Harry saw were teeth like arranged pearls, surrounded by red, enticing lips and he stared at her hungrily, wondering how he could have been so stupid, for how could there be any other Ginny than the one he was following now?

There were only inches between them. All he wanted to do was to touch Ginny, to feel every inch of her flawless skin, to hold her and make her his own. She slipped back into the mist and he hurried after her. He only made it a couple of steps before an ear-splitting shriek pierced the air and he sunk to his knees, clamping his hands over his ears.

The melody had stopped. All of Harry's comfort vanished, and he started to look around, not for Ginny, but for a way out of the mist. He could feel a malignant presence, very close to him. A demoniac chuckle came from his left and he drew away from it, frightened. He crept in the other direction, but there was a chilling, guttural laugh, so close he felt a hot breath on the back of his neck. Harry took several long, ragged breaths and bit down on his knuckles. The daemon laughed again. He recoiled and inched backwards, too terrified to stand still but worried what he might find if he wandered too far.

There was a sound like wood – or bone, Harry thought in terror – snapping, and a voice he recognised cursing softly. A chorus of shrieks came from every direction and Harry turned frantically, training his wand on the shifting banks of fog. All of a sudden there was total silence and the mist began to lift. Harry pressed himself to the floor, searching for black cloaks, talons and every other foul thing he could imagine.

There was nothing. Harry got to his feet again, dizzy with relief. The last of the mist disappeared quickly and the others came back into focus. Ron and Neville were nearby; Hermione and Luna were standing further off in the middle of the room. And there was Ginny – the real Ginny: pale, thin, wide-eyed with worry, thin-lipped with fear, whose eyes were only brown. She was standing next to the music box, which had been smashed almost to kindling, nursing her right hand in her left. Harry dropped his gaze, feeling ashamed, and looked back to the others. Hermione and Luna hurried forward and pulled Ron and Neville back into the centre of the room. They were all looking fearfully at something behind him. He turned around and his breath caught.

What had been an ordinary wall when they'd entered the room had transformed under the presence of the mist. Now, the room just ended – perfect darkness met the walls, the floor and the ceiling, forming such a sharp, symmetrical boundary as only magic can make. It made no sound and was fixed in place. Even darkness can shine and glimmer, but here there was nothing. It was impossible to tell if it was the floor or a wall. The only thing Harry could be sure of was that if he'd followed that thing – the creature that had taken Ginny's shape – back through the divide, no magic in this world or his own, not even Albus Dumbledore, would have been able to bring him back.

"What— what—just happened to us?" Ron was looking very hard and straight at Luna. Harry couldn't help noticing that he was trying very hard to act like Hermione didn't exist. Neville glanced once at Luna once before blushing furiously.

"Well, I opened the music box and a melody started to play", Luna said, "I didn't like it very much, it was much too slow, and some of the notes sounded quite wonky. You three seemed to like it, though." She motioned towards the three boys, "You were grinning like mad and then you started walking into the mist. You couldn't hear us, and none of the spells we hit you with worked. We couldn't hit the box with any spells either, so in the end Ginny ran up to it and smashed it. Then the mist disappeared, and you all woke up."

Harry had been listening to Luna and hadn't heard a pair of footsteps approaching him. A pair of thin arms looped around his neck, a warm body pressed against his own and shuddered a few times before falling still, and he offered reassurance back. Ginny was crying gently into his chest.

"Come on Ginny – I'm alright", he said awkwardly, not really sure what he was meant to do now.

"I thought I'd lost you – and after yesterday, at the pool – I thought you wouldn't –", she managed between sniffs.

Ron was watching him suspiciously. Which he probably deserved, because if he'd worked out that Ron had just seen some version of Hermione, he couldn't imagine Ron would be too happy at what had come out of the mist for him. He turned his attention back to Ginny.

"At least we're even for the basilisk now", he quipped, and got a wet chuckle in response. Ginny's arms tightened around him again, and he gave her a consoling hug back, wanting her to know that he was alright and all was forgiven. She took another minute to compose herself before she released him and stepped back, staring resolutely at her feet; she was embarrassed now her tearful display had ended.

"You're bleeding", Harry said tenderly, seeing that Ginny had several splinters in the back of her hand from breaking the box.

She offered him her hand and he took it carefully in both of his. Harry eased the splinters out, one at a time, and Ginny would wince and hiss softly as Harry removed every shard of wood from her hand. He stopped to ask if she was alright after every splinter, obviously concerned, and she had to keep reassuring him that he wasn't hurting her. He would give her a fond look and she'd smile up at him, until she noticed her brother was watching them sourly, and had to whisper to Harry to hurry up and stop being so affectionate.

Fortunately for them, Hermione began to ask Ron questions about the music box and the mist, and what it was they'd been so keen to follow. Ron went very quiet and mumbled that it was nothing; he still wouldn't look at Hermione, staring fixedly at a point a foot above her head. So Hermione turned to Neville, intent on finding out what had lured the boys into the mist. Neville, Harry and Ron remembered with growing horror, always caved to Hermione's questions whenever they'd done something wrong.

"What was in the mist, Neville?" Hermione asked.

Neville made as if to speak, and Harry and Ron resigned themselves to the worst, sure their roommate was about to give them up and they'd be done for. And then it wouldn't be Ginny whispering soft apologies and holding Harry's hand long after he'd taken the last splinter out.

"I can't remember", he said. Evidently there were some things that not even Neville was willing to share.

Harry and Ron let out relieved breaths; Hermione made an exasperated noise and walked over to the black door. It opened to show the corridor. She walked back through, followed by Luna and Ginny. Ron came in just after his sister, making sure he kept a safe distance from Hermione.

This left Harry and Neville in the room. Neville glanced at Harry.

"Ginny?" he asked in a low voice. Harry nodded.

"Luna?" he asked back.

Neville nodded, and they walked back into the corridor together, in silent agreement never to speak of the music box or the mist again.

* * *

Harry was just drifting off when he felt something pecking his forehead. He sat up and fumbled around in the dark for his glasses, putting them on to find a white object flapping just in front of him. It was a magically animated paper bird. Now it had Harry's attention, it had stopped flapping and lay still in his hand. He unfolded it to find a message written in glowing ink.

_Guess who, sleepyhead?_

Harry retrieved his glasses and wand and erased the message, writing a reply with his wand.

_Not Hermione, I hope. Proper witches and wizards always go to bed when they are told to._

He sent the bird back, smiling, before being struck by an alarming thought. How did he know the bird was from Ginny? What if it the bird had come from Luna, and she thought he was Neville? Or, even worse, what if it had been from Luna and she'd meant to send it him? Not that there was anything wrong with Luna. He looked across the corridor. It was too dark to see Luna's bunk. He spotted the bird coming back through the dark.

_Is Ron sleeping?_

He let out a relieved breath. There was no reason Luna would ask that. Then he looked at the message again, and felt a twinge of nerves. He read and re-read the message about twenty times before he could muster the courage to reply. He'd never thought so much about three words in his life.

_I think so._

He sent the bird flapping back to a bunk above his. There was a short delay and then the sound of bare feet hitting the floor by the end of his bunk.

"Hey you", Ginny whispered, slipping silently into his bunk and under the covers. She helped herself to most of the duvet.

"Hey", Harry said lamely.

"I bet you say that to all the girls you have in your bunk", Ginny said, smiling at Harry's nervous behaviour.

Harry decided it would most definitely not be a good idea to tell Ginny that he'd had his arms around Luna in his bunk two nights ago.

Ginny shifted over, curling limberly against his body, and Harry had to repress a shiver of excitement. He wondered if she was expecting him to do something. A large part of Harry wanted to do all sorts of things with Ginny, but then he thought about how cut up she'd been earlier, and it didn't seem right. And thoughts like those had already caused him enough trouble today. She sighed softly and he gave her a quick kiss. They fell asleep in each other's arms. Neither of them felt they had to do anything else.

* * *

Of all the days Ron had to wake up first.

Harry felt a hand batting his face, and there was an indignant squeak from Ginny as she was yanked out of his bunk. If looks could kill, Harry had serious doubt over whether he ever would have woken up. Ron was looming over him furiously.

"What have you been doing to my sister?"

Harry sat up quickly, trying desperately to thinking of a reply that wouldn't get him hexed. He knew he had to handle the situation delicately to avoid an argument. Ginny, it seemed, had other ideas.

"Doing to? What do you think Harry does, stuns me and then takes me to his bunk?" she said, glaring at her brother.

"Ginny, stay out of this", Ron said, adopting his most serious big-brother voice.

"Ron we weren't doing anything, I swear", Harry said quickly, eager to prevent a Weasley spat. "I know what it must have looked like—"

"It looked like my baby sister spent the night in your bunk, and you're going to tell me that isn't what happened."

"We didn't do anything. We just slept together – no I didn't mean that –" Harry tailed off, fumbling for the words to tell Ron he'd spent a completely innocent night with Ginny sleeping beside him.

Neville jumped down from his bunk to sit next to Luna in hers, which Harry would normally have found funny if he wasn't sure Ron would jinx him if he so much as smiled. Ginny didn't take too kindly to Ron's interfering.

"Don't go all sanctimonious on us, Ron! We know all about you and Hermione, and that morning-after spell she's been casting when she thinks no one's looking. And there was that one time you forgot to cast the Muffliato charm and we could hear everything—"

Harry wasn't sure if this was true. Maybe he'd been lucky enough to sleep through it. Ron had gone very pink.

"That's irrelevant! Hermione is nobody's sister!"

"She's as good as mine", Harry cut in, not sure how he was helping matters, but feeling he had to contribute something, and let it be known that the image of Ron and Hermione sharing a bunk didn't fill him with joy. At the mention of her name Hermione sat up slowly, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and smiling at Harry affectionately.

"Thanks Harry. That's really sweet", she murmured, brushing a tangle of hair away from her face, evidently only half-awake. Then she turned to Ginny and changed tack with frightening speed.

"Ignore her Ron. Ginny's just being like that because I won't teach her the spell so she can't sleep with Harry." And with a taunting grin, Hermione lay back down out of sight, readily prepared for the furore that was sure to follow.

Now, several things happened at once.

Firstly, Harry had gone very quiet and was processing this rather interesting piece of information. A smile threatened to break out and he had to hastily school his features into a look of indifference, because Ron was still standing over him, and could hit him pretty easily if he wanted. Meanwhile, Ginny had gone to stand under Hermione's bunk and was shouting up at the Gryffindor witch, calling her every name under the sun and several she made up on the spot, until Ron turned to his sister with a look of such disdain that she stopped shouting at Hermione and looked at her brother nervously.

"You asked Hermione to teach you the contraceptive spell so you could sleep with Harry?"

Neville and Luna looked like they wanted entertainment like this every morning.

"What's it to you?" Ginny said sullenly, sounding like she'd been caught by her mother doing something she wasn't supposed to. Ron turned back to Harry.

"Did you know about this?" he asked in an ominously low voice. Harry shook his head, not trusting himself to speak while Luna was pulling faces at him.

"He didn't know", Ginny said, thoroughly humiliated by now.

"Well Hermione did the right thing. She shouldn't teach you spells like that until you're older", Ron said, in a pompous tone that made him sound just like Percy.

"Oh! Stop acting like you're such a fucking adult, Ron!" Ginny snarled, and then ran off to hide behind the shower curtain, tearfully asking Luna for help with the heating and water charms.

Ron looked like he wished he'd had the good sense not to get out of bed that morning. Neville got up and started fixing breakfast, smiling to himself.

* * *

I'm working on the last four chapters at the moment – thanks to everyone who's left a review, and keep them coming!


End file.
